Like Charlie Chaplin's character in the comedy Modern Times about an assembly-line worker who loses it after tightening one bolt too many, HR consultant Art Quinn says that when employees are pushed to their limits, the workplace can be a dehumanizing place.

A promotion can do a lot to make up for the longer hours and extra duties that many workers have wrestled with in the past couple of years. But firms often fail to see where employees who are learning on the job might fit into new roles.

As part of our 90th anniversary, Workforce Management is talking to some of the people and organizations that helped influence today's workplace. In this installment, Workforce Management contributor Susan Hauser speaks with Lex Frieden about the origins of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Frieden is a professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. The act was born partly out of his service as director of the National Council on the Handicapped (now the National Council on Disability) as well as his own experience of being denied admission to one university because he used a wheelchair.

Someone brought up a previous job they'd worked at and how the company would hold a Secret Santa event. I immediately felt this chill, like a nor'easter howling off Lake Michigan through an open window. Secret Santa? Oh man. Call in our EAP. I've harbored a Secret Santa humbug for years.